Disputed Sea - 13. Disp Ch 13

For the next forty minutes or so, we unloaded the Ute and the trailer, with the new quad bike placed in the garage, and all of the new white goods were put into their new places, with the older ones moved out and placed on the verandah temporarily. Once completed, we sat down at the kitchen table and had a cup of tea.

“Now lads, tell me a bit about yourselves if you don’t mind, as I have not been updated on much about the station and its staff,” I asked, and for the next twenty minutes, we were told that the two boys are from a family of six children and that they grew up on a farm, located just half an hour our of Esperance in the far south-east of the state, and that their mother had to sell the farm after the sudden death of their father in a farming accident.

Douglas was in his final year of studies at Agriculture College, which combines the final two years of high school along with agriculture training, while Fraser was in Year 10 at high school. Their other siblings are Michelle who was in Year 8 in high school. Twins - Joanna and Jordan who were in Year 6 and Lyall who was in Year 4 in primary school.

They moved into a house in town, where their mother returned to work as a high school teacher, and where they settled into town life. When Douglas finished college, he took up doing seasonal farm work during seeding and harvesting, and in between he worked at a local grocery store. Now three years later, Douglas – 21 and Fraser – 19 managed to secure full-time work as station hands at Exmouth Gulf Station, and have been working on the station for three months now.

“Well, as you probably already know, my family owns two other Pastoral Leases, located a bit further up the coast just South-east of Roebourne, which have been in the family for many generations. What you do not know is that my partner and I also own property in Darwin and at Kakadu in the Northern Territory, plus we run a successful accommodation and research business in the Abrolhos Islands West of Geraldton, as both Joshua and I have degrees in Marine Science.

Unfortunately, Joshua’s family is currently caught up in a rather politically sensitive issue that is happening in the South East Asia region, so we have been forced to retreat to a less visible location until things die down a little. I want you both to know that we look after our staff very well, so don’t be too surprised as new things happen for the better, very quickly around here,” I said to the brothers.

For the rest of the day, we were shown around the immediate area of the homestead, including all buildings, with the lads living in the cottage behind the homestead, which has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a lounge room. We learnt that before the Station Manager had left, the lads were living in the basic staff quarters, which are located amongst a grove of trees, that have six basic bedrooms, two bathrooms, a laundry and a small outdoor undercover lounge area.

The homestead itself is great, with a large master bedroom with a private lounge, ensuite bathroom, and patio. Plus there are four additional bedrooms and two bathrooms, the main lounge room, formal dining room, kitchen, pantry and store, also a laundry and extra store room, a large office and a games room, which acts as a staff dining room when contract staff are on the station.

A bit later in the afternoon, after we had discussed the first major project of doing a major cleanup of the homestead paddock, we drove down to the Exmouth Gulf beach, which was spectacular to see, with some cream-white sands, a couple of small creeks with stone and sand beaches along it, and further along some rocky limestone coast, with a one to two-metre drop into the water.

“We didn’t get a chance to show your parents the special location during their short stay here recently, allow us to show you,” Fraser said to us, as we admired the scenery around us, “Sure lead the way,” I replied, not sure what to expect, as we climbed back into our two vehicles and we followed the lads north along the coast for about a kilometre before crossing over a creek, so we were on a kind of tidal island by the looks of it.

About 1.5 kilometres further north, we suddenly came across a cottage, located about 100 metres from the beach, which looked very modern. “Wow, this was totally unexpected,” I said as we climbed out of the vehicle, “Yes sir, it is, and was built about two years ago, and placed in that position by the previous owners, and as you can see about 30 metres up the beach there is a shed, where we store our basic boating equipment, namely a 6 metre Tinnie with a 90 hp engine, a 3.5-metre zodiac inflatable dinghy, plus two kayaks and all the equipment to go with it, plus some fishing rods,” Douglas said to us.

We were shown the cottage, which has solar and wind generators, UHF and VHF radio antennas, a freshwater tank, a biodegradable waste storage tank, and it was modern and looked very comfortable inside, with two bedrooms, a bathroom, laundry, an extra toilet, living area, study, kitchen, pantry and dining area. When we checked out the beach shed, we discovered a concrete boat ramp to low tide and saw that the boats were on trailers, with a winch in the shed to lower the trailer to the water and pull it back out again, while there is a rack to hold the kayaks, paddles and life jackets in place.

I looked over at Joshua as we stood near the water near the bottom of the ramp and I smiled, and I could see that Joshua was thinking something similar to me, about having some of our research equipment transferred to here, so that we can continue our work.

Back at the homestead, while the lads began the big cleanup project, Joshua and I were in the study preparing to make a few calls, the first home to Warambie Station to talk to my parents, and Dad answered the call. “Dad Anton, this is Josh speaking, Kip and I have a few things we need to discuss with you,” Josh said which caught me by surprise a little, with how he addressed my dad, who chuckled at this.

“Yes son, go ahead,” my Dad responded, which also surprised me, and Joshua looked at me and smiled, and for the next twenty minutes we discussed some of the ideas that we have, which includes bringing my research barge up from the Abrolhos Islands, as well as bringing the MV Warambie as a support vessel for my research base, and my father thought it was a great idea and to go ahead and arrange for it to be brought up.

We mentioned to Dad about the beach cottage and boatshed and ramp and he said he was aware of their existence, but just didn’t have time to check them out, and he asked us about both buildings and their contents, and Dad suggested putting the lads at the cottage, so to keep a close eye on the buildings, which we agreed on.

Just before ending the call, Dad announced that the pastoral lease was in my name and that I am now fully in charge of this station, and that it was up to me on how I run it. I was left stunned at this announcement, with Dad ending the call soon afterwards, not giving me a chance to respond to what he had announced. Our second call was to Amanda and Olivia, on the Silver Cloud Sat Phone.

“Hello there, we finally get to hear from you,” a familiar voice said as the call was answered and we both laughed at this, “Hello Olivia, is Amanda with you?” Joshua asked, “Just a moment, and I will get her… Sweetie, it is our bosses on the phone,” we hear Olivia say and moments later Amanda joined the conversation, and we discussed arranging for getting the Silver Cloud, Warambie and the Research Barge up to Exmouth.

We decided that it would be easier if we had it all shipped up to Exmouth, that way saving time and extra money on fuel costs, while Trent, Alex, Olivia and Amanda would fly up once the vessels are loaded and on their way north. Joshua began to organise for a cargo ship to make a special trip from Geraldton to Exmouth to transport three research and support vessels into the area.

While the Silver Cloud and MV Warrabie will be offloaded at the Exmouth Marina, the Research barge, would be taken further down the inside coast of the gulf, and offloaded just off the coast near the station boatshed. While we were waiting for this to happen, we arranged for four mooring anchors to be installed near the mouth of the creek, just 3.5 kilometres south of the shed and boat ramp.

With the mouth of the creek being 450 metres wide, I decided that the mooring anchors would be placed, so that the research barge would be facing in a northeast and southwest direction, in line with the entry to the creek, so it will be reducing the stress on the anchors and reducing the area of the barge for strong northeasterly winds, which occur during the cyclone season.

As we sat down for dinner on our first night at the station, with Joshua cooking dinner for us all, I could feel a little tension with the lads, as we ate. “Have you had a station cook here before?” I asked between mouthfuls. “Only for a short while, then the Station Manager’s wife did all of the cooking, with me assisting when needed,” Fraser replied.

“Well, I see no need for extra pressure on you, and lucky for us we have a cook available to take over,” Joshua said in response, “You are referring to Trent with Alex assisting?” I asked, mentioning the names of the two Catering staff for the MV Silver Cloud.

“I am indeed, I have spoken to them and they plus two of the research staff will be joining us here at Exmouth Gulf,” Joshua replied. “So we will need to arrange for on-land accommodation for them all?” I asked, “No, they are happy to remain on board the research facility since it will be very close to shore anyway,” I replied.